Letter written for Hugh Carr to Conly Greer (giving permission for Conly to marry his daughter Mary), 1913 December 2

This collection consists of the history of Hugh Carr, an African American born in enslavement in 1843 and his family who lived on a tract of land (Riverview Farm) that Carr and his wife Texie Mae Hawkins bought in 1870 after emancipation. He became one of the largest African American landowners in Albemarle County, where he raised several generations of his family in the Union Ridge Hydraulic Mills community, until his death in 1914.

The papers show that Carr highly valued education for his daughters as well as his son. His eldest daughter, Mary Louise Carr Greer became a well-known educator and principal of Albemarle Training School. Her family continued to live on the farm until 1978 when it became the Ivy Creek Natural Area with the support of the Nature Conservancy.

There are documents, newspaper clippings, photographs pertaining to the history of this prominent African American family.

Included is the original receipt for the purchase of land for the farm by Hugh Carr in 1870 in the amount of $100 and contracts for when Carr worked as a farm manager for Richard Wingfield and A. A. Southerland.

There are legal and financial papers of Conly Greer (1883-1956) and correspondence of Mary Carr Greer and her husband, Conly Greer. Included is a letter written for Hugh Carr giving Conly approval to marry his daughter. (Hugh Carr could not read and write but he would sign his name with an X). There is also correspondence of their daughter, Evangeline Greer Jones while courting her husband, Hinton C. Jones.